Oh Hishamuddin, What have you done?

hboplace.blogspot

(...) Mr Ong told us that he received a Pekeliling (that dreaded piece of document that government servants has to treat like the Bible) about the school fees. The gist of the circular are the following:

1. The term "Yuran" will be replaced with "Pakej Bayaran Tambahan"
2. In essence the parents will have to pay more unless you take into account the fact that all students will now receive free text books. However for parents who already received free text books, they will have to pay more. So the poor parents have to pay more now while the rich parents pay less. What the heck?

The Pengetua is also complaining that he has just spent about RM8,000 to turn one empty classroom into a store to keep free textbooks for 1,500 students. Moreover his teachers would now have to keep stock of more than 10,000 books. All these for something that was not even requested by most of the parents. Normally when you do not ask for something you will not be able to value the gift.

Back to the "Yuran" issue. Now that there is no more "Yuran" but "Bayaran tambahan", the politicians can go tell the whole world that in Malaysia education is free. But how can that be so when we still have to pay "Bayaran Tambahan"? The answer is in the next instruction in the Pekeliling. The School must get the consent of the PIBG to collect the "Bayaran Tambahan".

In fact the YDP has to sign the Application Form that must be submitted to the Ministry for them to approve the request from the parents that they be allowed to collect the money.

See how neat it become? Legally, there is no more school fees. What is being collected from the parents now is money REQUESTED BY THE PARENTS themselves and they have the signed Application Form to prove that. So if the parents have asked for permission to collect the fees how can it be from the government? As far as the government is concerned, all money collected have been consented by the parents since they are the ones asking for it to be approved. The government has in fact been so kind so as to put a ceiling on the amount to be collected. The irony of it all is that the PIBG will not see a single sen of the money to be collected. It will go to 1. Kokurikulum, 2. Kertas Ujian, 3. Sukan Tahunan, 4. Insurans 5. MSSM and 6. Kegiatan Agama/Moral. Even Sumbangan PIBG is not included and we have to make another application for this. If we look at the purpose of the "Bayaran" all must agree that they are for the running of the school activities which is the responsibility of the government.

It is bad enough that we have been asked to pay for it. We know our country is still developing and those who can afford it should contribute towards educating our young. I'm sure a lot of people can live with that but when the government try to hoodwink us into saying that it is giving free education and at the same "tricked" us into paying for it, I'm really pissed off. Please don't take us for fools.

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